When we started for the Camargo camp-meeting, we had a few dimes. Having been provided with a free pass, through the kindness of Brother ——, who wrote that for months he had not thought of the camp-meeting without seeing us on the program and that we must be there without fail, we left with Wife all our change but two nickels. Told our printer that as we had no money to give him he might quit if he saw fit and hunt a position where he could get his pay. We remarked that as the Trumpet was not ours we had no choice whether it lived or died. Well, it cost us five cents to reach the depot by street-car, and the other nickel to carry us and baggage from the train to camp-ground, so we just had enough. Praise God from whom all blessings flow! Though we were brought there by the direction of God's Spirit through Brother ——, the high priest in charge, probably out of self-interest, gave us no place in the pulpit. But God gave us a field to work in, and the hearts of the "people who do know their God," and, blessed be his name, in that meeting he gave us over sixty-one dollars. So the Trumpet still sends out the certain sound. Here is a sample of many letters received the last few months. It will show how others see the Trumpet in relation to God's will and Satan's dread:
"Ah yes, Brother Warner, it is the Trumpet the devil wants stopped. You may evangelize all you please, so the Trumpet goes under, and the devil doesn't care. Do stand by the Trumpet at all hazards."
Of course we know that all such expressions relate to the awful and offensive truth of God that we give place to in the Trumpet, and not to any ability we possess to write or conduct a paper. We are too sorely and constantly pinched by a sense of our own ignorance to think anything else.
In the November 15 number, under the heading, The Trumpet Will Go On, we have the following:
God has blessed us with excellent health and strength. Praise his holy name! We can work without apparent fatigue from 5 A. M. to 11 P. M., and we propose doing so, by the continued help of God. We feel that the gates of hell can not stop the truth. And if we can not issue the paper regularly every two weeks, we will issue as often as we can, and give everybody his or her full number of papers. The Lord holds us to this work, and he can not forsake us in the work whereunto he has called us. Let all the readers of the Trumpet obey the voice of the Spirit of God, and there will be means both to enlarge and carry on the paper for the glory of God. Oh, if the God of salvation could but reach some who are blessed with means and draw out about two hundred dollars it would pay all the Trumpet debts, get the necessities to enlarge the paper, and provide a good little stock of paper to start with. We will work, and pray, and trust, and God and the dear people will provide the means.
At the beginning of the second year the price of the Trumpet was raised to one dollar.
For some time before the Trumpet raised to one dollar, nearly everybody sent us one dollar instead of seventy-five cents. Thus the Lord has fixed the price, and he will provide for its enlargement.
The enlargement came with the first issue in February. It was made a six-column, four pages—15 by 22. In the first issue of the new size we find the following editorial:
We printed two thousand papers this issue. It is quite a task on our hand-press; but, praise God, he gives us blessed health and strength, and we are perfectly satisfied to work on with the means the Lord has furnished, until he sees proper to give us others.
Early in the autumn of 1882 the publishing office was moved to Cardington, Ohio. Here was a congregation of saints among whom the publishing work could be better supported. A very pleasant office, warm and well lighted, was rented for thirty dollars a year. Brother Warner acknowledges his enjoyment of the great kindness, love, and cooperation of the true saints there. It seems, however, that even there the work did not make much progress. The old press had by this time become very unsatisfactory. Brother Warner sought to hire his printing work done elsewhere, but his effort resulted in his having to print the first issue of 1883 on a job-press, with the paper reduced in size to a four-column 11 by 15. The price was dropped to seventy-five cents, then to fifty cents. The following editorial will give an insight to his situation: